“CMP: Great benefits, disorganized company structure ”

Comp & Benefits

Work/Life Balance

Senior Management

Career Opportunities

Former Employee - Editor in San Francisco, CA

Former Employee - Editor in San Francisco, CA

I worked at UBM

Pros

CMP Media has a very good benefits package -- IF you take advantage of it. The company allows time off for volunteering, flexible summer hours (some offices), and often supports work-from-home schemes. The emphasis is on getting the job done and done well rather than getting in done during these working hours or this/that particular way. Tuition assistance is very good. HR staff has always been astounding. Employees with 7 years' experience with the company get sabbatical. Even the layoff package is pretty sweet.

Cons

CMP has rebranded itself, restructured its departments, and reclassified its corporate culture so many times no one knows who CMP Media employees are any more or what they do.

I've been there for the good days and the bad days. In the good days, there were tons of perks, bonuses, parties and events, generous salaries, awards. There was an acceptance of work-life needs that wasn't found elsewhere. The type of leadership you'd find really depended on which publication you worked on, and in which department, but my top manager on my first pub was absolutely top notch! He personally allowed for practically unlimited professional growth. Whatever level you were willing to take it to, he was supportive. He didn't throw money at you indiscriminately, but certainly rewarded good work. I'm describing my "good" experience strictly within a single publication. This description does not include senior management.

Cons

Low expectations plus high salaries equals a staff full of lazy lifers! It's dull, creatively stifling, and breeds dissatisfaction. Underqualified people often find themselves promoted, by default (i.e. somebody above them leaves), to positions they aren't equipped for. This leads to either a false sense of entitlement, or a shifty fear of being found out. The fear of being discovered leads these people to make a full-time job of sabotaging others to make themselves look good. I saw this across the board, in the good days and the bad days, at the nice pub (at the middle management level) and the not-nice pub (from the top right on down!). You can't just promote someone because they're THERE and expect them to lead with confidence! In the last pub I worked on for this company, I saw four people in a row (on ONE publication!) get witch-hunted, provoked, sabotaged and set up to fail, so they were eventually fired. The economy had gone sour, jobs were being cut, and it became a game of predator and prey. If you didn't want to be next, you had to make the other guy look bad, and some people did this with relish. It was truly shameful, but I don't think the company is like that across the board. That one particular publication is led by a 20+ years lifer with a God complex. Play up to that ego, and you can stay, regardless of your qualifications or lack thereof. But... why would you want to?

Advice to ManagementAdvice

Raise your expectations and encourage people (positively! not by fear!) to meet them.

Benefits were great and generally it was a fun environment. I was promoted several times, and, to be honest, never worked all that hard (although there were some exceptions).

Cons

Vision was a overused and under utilized word. Battles developed over the silliest and most irrelevant things. You basically had to be incompetent AND stealing from the company before they would fire you--just one element and you'd linger on for years.